MovieChat Forums > The Americans (2013) Discussion > Can we talk about Henry?!

Can we talk about Henry?!


What are your thoughts - is he just a piece of the puzzle writers don't know what to do with or do you think we'll be stunned by the season end? I feel like the show is too top notch/writers to careful & thoughtful to just forget about him. I keep suspecting that something huge is going to happen with him without his parents getting totally blindsided because they've been focusing on Paige this whole time. Like maybe despite the agency saying they'd never go behind their backs, they've been successfully inducting Henry this whole time? What do you think?!??

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I been saying this the whole time, he probably is already KGB ! haha

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...they've been successfully inducting Henry this whole time? What do you think?!??

i think you should write for the show. that would be a great plot twist.

remember 'No Way Out' (great movie from 1987, Gene Hackman) -- sometimes you gotta have those unforgettable 'wow' plot twists.

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He's playing video games on a computer gifted to him by the Soviet government, maybe in the 2D games he's a KGB Officer killing americans :).

I think those were pretty expensive and not available for anybody in the early 80's, a i7 6950x with Titan X, 2TB SSD and 128GB DDR4 won't be as costly as those were back then...

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He has a Commodore 64, which was an extremely popular computer.

It was $200 each for the computer, the printer and floppy disk drive; a TV was used as a monitor.

A typical user got it for $400 or $600 bucks depending if they had a printer or not. Add on a few bucks for some old Atari joysticks and a few games.

Not bad really.

Hopefully he has some old school Seven Cities of Gold, Mail Order Monsters, Archon 2, Racing Destruction Set, Ultimate Wizard, Wizball... haha so many classics for the Commie 64.

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Well, $600 back then is roughly $1500 of today, but I don't know how it compares to the average incomes of those days, definitely it wasn't something you see in every house in the early 80's.

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In the middle to upper-middle class neighborhood where this is set, yes they were actually quite common back then - especially if there were kids in the family.

By the point where the show has gotten up to so far (perhaps a month or two after the airing of "The Day After", which was November 20, 1983 - I haven't noticed any Christmas/holidays stuff but they could be later than that already), my family had a lot of electronic gizmos and two real computers.

Several of those Mattel pocket games (Football, etc), one of the brown fake woodgrain plastic Pong clones (it had Pong, "tennis" and "hockey" modes) with paddle controllers, an Atari 2600 with at least 20 games (most bought on sale, from friends, etc - but a few were prized Christmas presents as a kid lol a NEW GAME), a Commodore Vic-20 (media on cartridges, or type in your own BASIC programs), a TI-99/4A (media on cartridges or tape drive), Speak and Spell, etc. I won't even get into the VHS decks, stereo gear, etc.

My neighbors were pretty similar in that regard - except one neighbor had an Apple II. That was a seriously expensive computer at the time. They had an Intellivision, split style camcorder (camera unit was separate from the tape deck and had a big ass cable connecting them, plus limited battery life), Betamax and VHS, etc.

They have a Commie 64 in The Americans, which had only been out for about a year, but at least it wasn't anachronistic. A lot of people bought those TI-99s and Vic-20s when they went on steep discount, but a few savvy people knew that the Commie 64 was a really rock solid machine at a very good price. Although it started out at almost US$600, once they got volume production going, they got the unit down to the same price as the floppy drive - which was by far the most complex component in the setup for the era. Making bulk batches of printed circuit boards with all of the components in the right spot... pretty easy, all things considered; but those pesky floppy disks were pretty new to the consumer market and had some growing pains and oddities (like the Apple II boot up noise, the Commie 64 floppy drive "sounds of death" clicking and banging noises)

My family got our Commodore 64 about a year after The Day After aired - PC, printer, and floppy disk drive; it connected to a TV. It was better than the Coleco Adam one of my friends had, and in most regards was FAR superior to the far more expensive Apple II.

A lot of people had them. They were selling around 2 million units a year around when the end of season 4 takes place, and that's just the Commie 64. Add on the Atari PCs, Coleco Adam, Apple II, IBM, Compaq/Amstrad/etc, Tandy's TRS-80 and related lines, so many more that I've forgotten about.

The simple fact, however, is that personal computers were really common in the type of income bracket shown by the people in the show.

Sure, there were situations like "that one kid in the trailer park with the Commie 64" who was the odd man out in his neighborhood - some had one for every few houses on any given block - other neighborhoods had a computer for each kid, even back then.

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There would be to many plot lines going at once. Right now he is like most boys his age and time period. Glued to games. Mom and dad are boring, and his Paige is to much of drama queen. So he stays out of the fray. But with that said him being over at Stan's and now Paige something is going to slip

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Paige a drama queen? She's been a quiet, studious, obedient kid until her parents could no longer sustain the lies and absences of their erratic family life and were forced to tell her some partial truths. She's stuffing emotions that would break most kids. She raises her voice and argues? I've seen worse reactions from teens over whether they could go to a movie.

Paige's parents murder people for a living. They destroy the lives of decent people for bits of information that may never be used. Yet they get a pass - and she gets condemnation for not being mindlessly obedient? Wow.

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No, Henry is an average if largely ignored kid, flying under his parents' radar as he's not making "trouble." The trouble will come inadvertently, not because he's been recruited. He'll finally see or hear something even he can't ignore.

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Oddly enough, I think he'd be a better spy than Paige ever could be. If second-generation illegals could work, Henry would be a good example--better than the erratic Jared.

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No, Henry is an average if largely ignored kid, flying under his parents' radar as he's not making "trouble." The trouble will come inadvertently, not because he's been recruited. He'll finally see or hear something even he can't ignore.


I totally agree with this. I think some of you are overthinking Henry's character at this point. Remember his "private time" photos of Stan's now ex-wife?... he's a typical teenage boy. A bit of a trouble maker, like most are his age. He also likes video games and has a bit of an attitude. I don't think he's being secretly recruited or anything by the KGB.

I do agree with the quote above; I think, by accident he will find something out, and have a total *beep* fit over it, maybe even try to tell Beeman. He's eventually going to either overhear something or Paige will open her mouth. He's getting VERY close to Stan Beeman and his son. I have a feeling in the future his story will get more interesting; he will be forced to choose between Beeman or his parents possibly.

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I agree. Henry is very bonded with Stan and his son. I wouldn't be surprised if he was planning to join the FBI himself. It's entirely possible he heard Pastor Tim's wife's threats unless he was using earphones and playing video games but I don't think earphones were used very much back then. He'd make a killer FBI mole, imo.

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Remember his "private time" photos of Stan's now ex-wife?


You do have to wonder though how he got his hands on such a photograph... I don't think he's been recruited and I think he is oblivious to P&E's secret, but he is his parents' kid that's for sure.

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I just binge-watched the whole series and of all the crazy things that happened, what troubled me the most was how little parenting they did with Henry. This kid is basically growing up on his own.

The parents are entirely focused on Paige, as if Henry isn't only a couple of years her junior (and the actor is growing up so fast, which accentuates the fact that Henry is definitely not a kid anymore!).

I can't help but feeling that Henry is their blind spot and he is going to be the reason of their downfall. He is definitely a lot closer to Stan than to his own father, he admires Stan a lot more than his dad, and he is 100% American, completely uninfluenced by the subtle ideological hint that the parents occasionally drop when Paige is around.

~*~

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I think Henry is too American for his parents to ever trust him enough to bring him into the fold. Every time we see him, he's doing something really American; like hanging out with an FBI agent, playing video games, wanting too much to visit Epcot Center, being really excited about American culture like movies,tv etc. The only dramatic thing I can see happening with him is that he spends so much time with Stan that his dad starts becoming jealous or maybe even paranoid and starts giving him attitude. If Stan ever catches on to the Jennings', I don't think Stan would ever use Henry against his own parents. At most, Stan might try and get Henry to "run away" to a safe place that the FBI is overseeing. I think Henry's ceiling is just a confused, angry, rebellious teenager.

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The idea I've had for awhile, ever since Henry became closer to Stan and has frequently inquired about his work as an FBI agent, is that Henry will develop an interest (which he already has shown) in becoming an FBI agent. And will ask Stan what he has to do....so Stan can tutor him in preparation.

Like, college, right courses to take, keeping fit, keeping away from drugs, things like that.

That sets up the ultimate irony coming at Phil, Liz and the Centre from left field--they never saw it coming.

That their son has of his own accord become what they wanted Paige to be: Somebody who is interested in getting on the inside of an alphabet agency as a set up to ultimately becoming a mole (if indeed than can convince him later.)

That would just be one of those dramatic ironies that the characters never saw coming, really.

Henry could provide that.

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That is what I see happening too, that Henry will decide he wants to be an FBI agent like Stan, perhaps will ask Stan about some tips on how to spy, which he tries out on his own parents for fun, only to discover...

Henry's always been really interesting to me, things like him breaking into the neighbour's house to play video games, having a good instinct about people, like with that guy they hitchhiked with one time - he knew he was not a good guy, and the fact he had the guts to smash him over the head with a bottle in the park while telling Paige to run (very reminiscent of what happened this last episode with Elizabeth defending Paige from creepy guys by using violence), he's also got a certain charm and a way of getting his own way while seeming innocuous and sweet. I think he's pretty much a natural, but it seems that Philip and Elizabeth haven't noticed that about him at all - it seems like they could be really underestimating him.

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Ah yes- I like the idea that Henry becomes interested in FBI work. That would certainly be the ultimate irony for Phillip and Elizabeth, and a sort of retribution for all their focus on their missions and Paige and totally ignoring/underestimating their other kid.

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I recall that he wrote about Stan as some kind of "hero" for a school project? He's interested in the FBI. I think that he'll be more "American" and right-wing than Paige, and therefore more difficult to get on-side. They may never tell him.

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Exactly what I was thinking. He may even rat his parents out, or at the very least have very conflicting thoughts on what to do with his parents.

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Henry's not as perceptive or intelligent as Paige, and is more likely to buy any excuses they give him, for any questions he has about their behavior. After Paige's reaction, they most certainly won't volunteer that information.

It's hard to say with Henry - while he's very "American", he may also be the kind of kid who thinks it's "cool" that his parents are spies and not consider moral or ethical issues as much as Paige, or he could go running to Stan. He could go either way.

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